On Thursday’s edition of Viewpoint with James Zogby:
M.J. Rosenberg, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media
Matters Action Network; Genieve Abdo, Fellow and Iran
analyst at The Century Foundation; Ronit Avni and Julia
Bacha, Executive Producer and Director of the Film Documentary
Budrus; Ayed Morrar, Protagonist of the
documentary Budrus and co-founder of The Popular Committee
Against The Wall.

M.J. Rosenberg, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media
Matters Action Network, discussed the Gaza Flotilla incident’s role in
growing Israeli isolation from the international community. “Israel has
never been this isolated before”, Rosenberg said. M.J. also commented on
statements by members of Congress on the Gaza
blockade: “They [certain members of Congress] consciously do what the
lobby tells them to do. It’s all about pleasing AIPAC,
pleasing the lobby and keeping fund-raising dollars coming in.”
Rosenberg also responded to comments by Glenn Beck directly attacking
Rosenberg’s recent article Lying About The Gaza Flotilla Disaster.

http://blip.tv/play/AYHpo1AC

Geneive Abdo, Fellow and Iran analyst at The Century
Foundation, discussed internal Iranian politics. Abdo gave a description
of the current political landscape one year after the Iranian
presidential elections where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was controversially
reelected. Abdo maintained that their is still Iranian opposition to the
current regime, “I would even argue their is more opposition now within
society to the state than there was a year ago”, she said. “The regime
survived”, she continued, “they didn’t win”. However, Abdo stated that
there has been a great deal of mobilization to keep political opposition
at bay. When dealing with Iran, Abdo suggested that the U.S. policy
should “pressure from many directions”.

http://blip.tv/play/AYHpo04C

Ronit Avni, Executive Producer of the film Budrus
and Julia Bacha, Budrus Director and
Producer, talked about their award-winning film documentary Budrus.
Budrus documents the struggle and process of Palestinian
community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who succeeded in uniting local Fatah
and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in a non-violent and
unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by
Israel’s Separation Barrier. “We wanted to tell a story about
non-violence”, said Ronit Avni. The film shows a side of Palestinian
activism in a light which is rarely seen in mainstream media and has
succeeded to raise awareness across many different groups. “Since Budrus,
more and more Israeli’s have joined Palestinian demonstrations”, said
Julia Bacha.

http://blip.tv/play/AYHpgmcC

Ayed Morrar, Co-founder of The Popular Committee
Against The Wall and protagonist of the film documentary Budrus,
spoke about the series of events that the film documents. Morrar
discussed the ways he was able to mobilize non-violent resistance.
Despite frustrating situations and temptation to fight back, Morrar said
he built trust between activists and made them feel like partners. “If
you want to achieve 100% your target, you must use 100% of your power”,
he said. For Morrar, power comes from the struggle, which he believes is
his duty, and from the will to foster real change through peaceful
resistance.